End of Summer

Summer has ended.  My two youngest started school on Thursday. They have again switched schools to a public school in our new town.  We felt it was best for them to integrate into their new community by going to school here.  We are also starting to be active with a local church part time as well.  The first two days at school seemed to go well.  I think there are some positives about this school, such as a very active band and choir teacher.  He seems happy to have some students who already know a little about playing in a band.  It seems that band and choir are optional classes, so I don't know how big the band or choir will be.  They will also have art regularly, computer class, and to LE's delight, she has a whole class focused on reading.  This teacher has a Hogwart's poster in her room and tons of Sci-fi and Fantasy books.  She already has LE happily reading Cauldecott Honor books!

LE will be doing something called Illinois Valley Show Choir this fall with extra workshops regarding auditioning, dance steps and stuff like that.  I think it will be a good fit for her.  I've scaled back her involvement with flute at Music Suite 408 to weekly private lessons, as she didn't really enjoy the hour of playing flute with the intermediate ensemble for an hour standing up after a 30 min private lesson.  It sounds like she'll be doing plenty with her school band anyway.

Jojo will be continuing on with his violin with Miss Kate. He has been doing his lessons on his own lately, but I am asking him to do them when I get home now, so that we can step up the quality of practice time he gets.  I hope I can keep it positive.

He will be playing soccer this year in a small park district program this fall.

His class will get to see the eclipse outside tomorrow with special glasses that his teacher bought for the occasion for all the kids.  I think they are the only group that gets to do this around.  It is a once or twice in a lifetime experience that he will never forget, even though it will only be a partial eclipse here.

JJ had a nice time in Florida this summer.  She caught a bug going around so didn't end up getting to go to Camp MennoHaven this year.  She did get to go to most of Camp Oasis, but had to come home to do some testing.  The new school she is going to attend is having a hard time deciding where to put her.  I hope they end up taking my recommendation to let her be a senior, but worst case scenario, she may be held back to sophomore year.  I think they were hoping that with that possibility, we'd say no thanks, because in spite of my trying all summer to get things set up before school started, they did not get their ducks in a row.  She did do the testing after the second day of school and have told us to still keep her home Monday - that Tuesday would be the earliest they would admit her, but even that isn't settled :(.  I'm praying for God to be in control of where they put her and that they would have favor on her.  She is pretty anxious about going to a big public high school, since she's never done anything like it.

CC could not find a job all summer.  She tried diligently at first and then after a few weeks again, but then gave up after all the rejection.  Probably moving was not in her favor this summer.  She goes back to school next weekend.

Tim and I took our first week away from all the kids alone since CC was born almost 20 years ago.  We went to California coast and spent 5 days at a conference.  While we were there, we were privileged to visit the Golden Rule, a ship that was manned originally by four men, one of whom was my late father-in-law, David Gale.  They sailed in protest to bomb testing in the Pacific in 1958.  It is quite a story that I am pretty proud of.  While we were there, DH got interviewed and may end up on national public radio telling his dad's story.  One thing interesting was that because of the Golden Rule, they peace sign came to be a pretty well-known symbol for peace.  It was shortly after the activity of the Golden Rule and the national news that it became, that the peace movement of the 1960s happened, and I wonder how much what they did led to that happening.  We have a copy of the book written by the Captain of the Golden Rule, that belongs to my mother-in-law Margaret now, and I hope to read it soon.  David is mentioned in the book.  We also got to look through a bunch of David's old pictures, news clippings, personal letters and so forth that Margaret has prior to visiting the ship.